Denouncing Iran
A leading Republican on the House intelligence committee denounced Iran for arresting an Iranian-American scholar from a Washington think tank and called the government’s action proof that the theocracy “engages in hostage-taking and is flouting the rule of law.”
“There is no reason for the government of Iran to have detained Dr. [Haleh] Esfandiari,” Rep. Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico said in a letter to Mohammed Javad Zarif, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Yesterday, the regime formally charged Mrs. Esfandiari with trying to overthrow the government.
Mrs. Wilson said that Mrs. Esfandiari’s arrest is the “most prominent recent case of unjustified detention, but not the only one.” She cited the arrest in January of Parnaz Azima, a journalist for the U.S.-supported Radio Farda, and accused Iran of targeting Americans because the United States supports human rights for Iranians repressed by the autocratic regime.
“The deliberate detention of American citizens by the government of Iran in retaliation for the U.S. government’s support for human rights in Iran only serves to prove to the international community and to the Iranian people that the government of Iran engages in hostage-taking and is flouting the rule of law,” Mrs. Wilson said.
“Dr. Esfandiari and other Americans being detained by Iran should be immediately released and allowed to return to the United States.”
The May 15 letter, released by her office yesterday, is part of a global effort to bring pressure on Iran to free Mrs. Esfandiari, an Iran specialist at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She was detained Dec. 30 while visiting her mother in Tehran. Mrs. Esfandiari was recently incarcerated in Evin Prison, a notorious detention center where dissidents have been tortured and killed.
Last week, Swanee Hunt, U.S. ambassador to Austria under President Clinton, announced that the Web site Free Haleh (www.freehaleh.org) has collected more than 2,000 signatures on a petition demanding her release. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, and Gordon H. Smith, Oregon Republican, have introduced a resolution calling for Mrs. Esfandiari’s release.
